Italy

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on health-related behavioral determinants and offers an overview of some recent policies aimed at improving population lifestyles. The course highlights the following topics: 1) the demand for health and health capital; 2) the behavioral determinants leading to unhealthy outcomes such as obesity and addiction; 3) the trade-offs between health and welfare objectives; and 4) policies aimed at modifying health-related behavior and lifestyles. The course combines theoretical analysis and class discussion of case-studies. The course combines theoretical analysis and discussion of case-studies.

The course is an introduction to North American literature (USA and Canada) written in English, with a special focus on identity issues and the making of "national" literatures. Classic and founding texts will be compared to outline the symbolic and mythological patterns that have molded US and Canadian realities, from European colonization to the end of the 19th century. Literature in this course is investigated through a constant dialogue with other arts, including media, cinema, photography, and the visual arts. The concepts of identity, memory, community, and inner/outer landscape, constitute the thematic paradigms to approach the evolving mentalities underpinning the evolution of complex identity processes in the so-called New World. The course discusses topics including: discovering, conquering and inventing North America; USA melting pot versus Canadian multiculturalism; puritan roots of American literary discourses; American pioneers, mapping the frontier; Canadian travelogues, female voices of the origins and contemporary interpretations; American transcendentalism/renaissance, eco-criticism, self-reliance, and new canons; the Civil War, slavery, freedom, and human Rights; the Gilded Age; and American proto-modernism.

This field-based research project course engages in all stages of earth and environmental science field investigations and allows students to gain an understanding of different research methodologies: from design to implementation, through collection and analysis of data that addresses specific research questions, identified independently by each student. The course also allows students to experience collaborative research work with clear objectives and milestones. Students draw upon the knowledge and practical skills gained during the “Volcanology of the Mediterranean” course to identify case-studies and research themes of interest to study in-depth, choosing from the wide range of geological and man-made processes and environments which students are exposed to throughout the program. During the results interpretation stage the attention is focused on developing skills for reporting field results in the format of scientific publications. While the majority of the research work is self-directed, a research advisor is assigned to each student, who provides guidance during scheduled appointments on how to locate resources and collect data, as well as review the appropriateness and feasibility of the research methods and tools in a collaborative manner with the student. Earth science and Environmental science disciplines are grounded in observations at all scales, from satellite and drone imagery to microscopic sampling; upon placing the results of such observations into geographic, spatial, and temporal frameworks, conclusions may be drawn about the processes that occur within complex environmental systems, and predictive models may be developed to assess the effect of human interactions. This course provides students with an opportunity to practice and hone key skills in gathering and analyzing data from primary sources, as well as developing a coherent and compelling argument in a scholarly manner.

The first goal of this course is to discuss the main contemporary macroeconomic issues, particularly in Europe, using a rigorous framework but with an emphasis on facts and problems as opposed to complicated theoretical models. The second goal of this course is methodological. Most, if not all, macroeconomic problems do not have an obvious, black-or-white solution: there are pros and cons in any solution we might think of. And in virtually all cases reasonable and competent individuals have very different views of the same issue. The course strives to present all the main sides of the debate, instead of presenting a simple model with a simple, one-sided solution. The course discusses topics including preliminaries: GDP and national income accounting, price indices, nominal and real quantities; preliminaries: interest rate and bond prices; preliminaries: a basic macroeconomic model; money, the monetary base, and the balance sheets of the sectors; the money supply process; the response of monetary policy to the Eurozone crises; the government deficit and debt; the debate on government debt; the debate on the effects of government spending and taxes; the debate on fiscal consolidations and austerity; the exchange rate and the current account; monetary and fiscal policies in an open economy; the debate about monetary unions and the Euro; and the view from Germany. Prerequisite: At least one course in macroeconomics and knowledge of calculus and differential equations.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program and is intended for advanced level student. Enrolments is by consent of the instructor. The course provides an overview of the meeting industry, and the basic elements for the acquisition and the organization of a meeting, with reference to the association market. The course discusses topics including meetings and events industry: value, characteristics, jobs, trends and current scenario following Covid-19; requirements and conditions of success; supply chain: venues, main suppliers, quality standards; meeting planners: different companies and services; marketing strategies: how to promote a venue or destination, bidding process for the acquisition of international association meetings; convention bureau: role and main activities;  segmentation by initiator: main markets, characteristics, needs, approach and management; different kind of events: characteristics, purposes and formats; main steps and techniques for planning, communicating and organizing an event; and green meetings.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by permission of the instructor. The course focuses on the new requirements with which diplomacy must comply, both at the national and global level, in the present transitional phase of the international relations system. A special section of the course is devoted to the radical changes that occurred after the Cold War and the public and multilateral diplomatic methods that resulted from it, with special reference to specific crises. The course describes the additional challenges that diplomacy must face, at the domestic and international level, in the present transitional phase of foreign relations. Specific case studies analyze the most relevant changes that have occurred since the end of the Cold War, and indicate the emerging public and multilateral diplomatic tools.

The course introduces key concepts of culture anthropology, and diversity and provides tools to analyze different approaches to the study cultural differences. Particular attention is devoted to current issues, positionality (race, class, gender, sexual orientation) and the processes of globalization, migration, and intercultural relations. The course discusses topics including, an introduction to cultural anthropology (theoretical approaches); cultures, cultural differences, and diversity; local and global dimensions, borders, and contact areas; migration processes and intercultural relations; language and communication, arts, media, and sports; and concepts of identity and issues of positionality. The course explores these topics in relation to psychology.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale Program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by consent of the instructor. This course engages the role of language—both as a symbolic code and as a material tool—in the spreading of late/neoliberal capitalism. While most analyses of the world’s current order tend to focus on political and economic aspects, this course explores how certain ways of speaking and using language may partake in producing capitalist forms of reasoning and practical conduct. Throughout the course, students develop tools to analyze the discursive and semiotic forms that characterize our everyday lives. Students learn to view linguistic interactions and graphic artifacts (i.e., street signage, typefaces, letterforms, brands, logos, and other types of graphic media) as socially and politically meaningful semiotic technologies that shape our worlds. Students learn how to analyze new protocols of discourse that characterize our everyday lives: the customer satisfaction survey, the service encounter, the checklist, the logbook, the flowchart, the electoral mission statement, the training session, etc. Despite their apparent ordinariness, these discursive genres/textual artifacts are key for the production of the self-improving and self-reflexive subjects required by the regimes of moral accountability and the forms of market rationality that characterize our contemporary moment. While reading ethnographic analyses of specific technologies of discourse, students engage broader questions: How pervasive are neoliberal structures of practice? To what extent can neoliberalism be represented as an overarching and coherent global trend generated by the homogenizing forces of Western Capitalism? Is our moral and affective experience completely shaped by the extension of economic rationality to all areas of life? The course shows how, within a regime of advanced capitalism, life and labor unfold through complex interplays of semiotic codes, affective registers, and material objects.

This course examines the evolution and cultural significance of three staple foods of Italian cuisine, bread, wine, and olive oil, from their ancient roots in the Mediterranean to their role in the enogastronomic traditions of Tuscany. The course traces the origins of these products in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, and their changing symbolic and cultural meaning across time, from ancient Roman and early Christian civilizations to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Students discuss their contribution to the definition of an Italian national identity and their place in today's food culture. For the study of bread and pasta in modern Italy, students look at the industrialization of wheat growing and of bread and pasta-making techniques, countered by the recent revival of heritage grains, especially in Tuscany. The analysis of Italian wine culture addresses the industrialization of wine production in Italy and the natural wine movement, with a specific focus on wine production in Tuscany. Finally, olive oil is studied from a symbolic, agricultural, and dietary perspective. Comparative tastings of ancient and modern grain breads, of conventional and natural wine, as well as of traditional Tuscan organic olive oil and commercial oil, are part of the class. Field trips to mills, farms, and food sites complement the class contents.